Chicago’s civic innovation community has worked in these areas in some detail and with more data being released, there’s potential for much more work to be done. Below we’ve put together a collection of data sources from local and federal resources and given some examples of safety apps being used around the country.

Jim McGowan of the Chicago Red Cross demonstrates the volunteer connection app at the their headquarters.

Data Resources

There is an astounding amount of data regarding public safety. At the federal data portal there are over 800 datasets regarding food, transportation, natural disasters, worker and product safety. We’ve put together a sampling of different data sets that can be used to build civic apps around public safety.

Safety Apps

Foodborne Chicago listens to Twitter for reports of food poisoning at restaurants. When the system finds one, it alerts the Chicago Department of Public Health who can reach out to the person through Twitter and asks them to fill out a form. When the form gets filled out, it turns into a 311 Service request for that restaurant to be inspected.

Clearstreets.org uses the City of Chicago’s plow tracking data to show which streets are clear. The app also keeps a record of snow plow locations from previous storms and can provide animations on the plows at work.

OpenStreetMap is free, collaborative map that anyone can edit. During disasters, the OpenStreetMap community helps humanitarian relief efforts by helping to improve the maps that relief workers use. The Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team (HOT) helps coordinate the efforts of remote volunteers relief organization on the ground.